Development Diary: The Deep Vaults

As I quickly ramp up a new megadungeon to run for my friend Jeff's campaign, I want to write down the mental steps I take throughout the development phase. My other current projects include development of two large-scale dungeons, plus prep for a Norse-style run at the G-series of classic adventures—all of which feature fairly standard D&D tropes—so I'm looking to do something fresh for this dungeon, with creatures and races I don't use often.

Also, the dungeon I picked to run for Jeff is tagged for the 3-6 level range (our characters are currently 2nd-4th). Jeff named it "The Deep Vaults" on the campaign map—a title he generated with no particular context intended. But I like it..."deep" sounds dangerous and mysterious and vaults can be rooms or caves, so I have lots of design choices. More than anything, I want this dungeon to feel alien and weird. I love mashing-up sci-fi and fantasy: stuff like Thundaar and Land of the Lost, as well as adventures like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and, in recent years, the excellent and inspired Anomalous Subsurface Environment.

(In fact, I considered just reskinning ASE for this, but as I was re-reading the modules, the big-picture setting of ASE is so vital to the inner workings of the dungeon that I felt the adventure would be lacking if I stripped all that great material out. If this dungeon goes over well with the guys, I might throw ASE onto my pile of future campaigns to run.)

Before going into a new design, I always like to lay out a set of principles...simple bullet points that define what the adventure will be about, and provide me with "bumpers" to nudge me back on target as I inevitably start to incorporate every kitchen-sink idea I can come up with. The list of goals might get tweaked during the design process, but this step always helps me get started.

For The Deep Vaults, I wrote out this list of design goals (the latter of which are pretty common megadungeon guidelines, but it still helps to say it—plus I want to really dial up #4 to high levels of interactivity and impact)...

1. No standard D&D monsters...use either weird, rarely-used ones or newly-created ones.
2. The PCs' relationship to the various dungeon factions should have an impact on play.
   
3. No standard traps or puzzle rooms; instead use environmental hazards and weird-tech challenges.
4. The dungeon environment must be interactive and have an impact on play.
5. Treasure is not straightforward; rather, the "loot" is in figuring out Leng technology and recovering valuable materials that are found in unusual forms (a spool of gold wire instead of gold coins, a tool made of sapphire, etc.)
   
6. The dungeon must be re-stockable, but ultimately could be "cleared" with great effort.

Dealing with the first goal is a subjective, but critically important one in terms of the dungeon's design, because the creatures occupying the dungeon have to actually "live" in the spaces drawn on the page. It doesn't have to be biologically precise, but I personally need to incorporate at least a rudimentary ecology into my dungeons, and the map should reflect that.

I'm sure every DM has a go-to selection of monsters that seem to show up in every dungeon roster. For me, it's goblins/hobgoblins, kobolds, orcs, ogres, oozes, undead, and constructs (golems, animated statues, etc.)—plus I have a thing for otyughs, owlbears, and manticores. For this, I want to get outside my comfort zone and work with creatures and motivations that are different from my usual fare.

First off, I want to use kuo-toa as one of the main factional baddies. I currently have a kuo-toa in the Monster Mansion adventure (as an analogue to the Creature from the Black Lagoon), but that's the only other time I've ever placed KTs in one of my adventures. I definitely want them for this because, while they're not that dynamic a monster, the concept of a "hideous fish-man" screams bizarro-underworld.

I also want troglodytes fighting with the KT over dungeon territory. I used trogs recently and loved the persistent effect their stench had on the fight. Even though they're weak, you have to be careful when fighting them or a couple bad rolls could be disastrous. Plus, as I was flipping through my monster books looking for good candidates, I made a connection between the trogs and another monster that not only provided a terrific boss-monster concept, but also a nice pun. (I'll reveal it later when I dive deeper into the trogs.)

Incorporating a conflict that runs throughout the dungeon—and which doesn't necessarily involve the PCs—is a great way to lend atmosphere and opportunity to the party's adventuring. In this case, with both the KT and trogs being primitive species, they would most obviously be fighting over something simple, like food. 

I also want a third hostile faction to be constantly tipping the balance of power so that neither faction gains the upper hand. I don't want to use drow or duergar because they are overused everywhere else to a degree that has stripped all wonder and menace from them. I briefly considered derro, but they didn't feel all that different from duergar or even goblins. 

I ultimately decided to create my own creatures, loosely based on the Servants of the Left Hand from Mike Mignola's Hellboy/BPRD comics—a race of highly-advanced beings forced deep underground by those on the surface world and desirous of revenge. They build machines of indescribable power and wait for the opportunity to surface and subjugate the world.

I envision them as short, almost barrel-shaped humanoids who conceal their features under heavy robes and masks, and shuffle about the dungeon using use all manner of strange technology to foil the adventurers (akin to magic). They will also not be encountered until the PCs are deep into their explorations. I decided to call them the Leng as an homage to HPL, but no one in my group is familiar with Lovecraft beyond "the guy who wrote Cthulhu," so it's just an Easter egg for me.

Those are three viable factions: two in direct conflict, with a more powerful third group that is mostly uncaring about the others but won't hesitate to mow them down whenever needed. The Leng will also need food, so perhaps this is the central plot device: a struggle for the dungeon's food source. What would that be? Why, a forest of mushrooms, of course.

I've always loved myconids and used them to great effect in one of my adventures a long time ago. They are a completely alien species with obscure motivations and decision-making processes. They can only communicate by covering you in their reproductive material, forcing you breathe it in. They don't have a singular consciousness, but are part of the same organism—completely neutral to the needs and desires of others. Fantastic! Plus there are tons of ancillary fungus-related hazards and monsters.

So, with a fungal forest being the primary food source for three hostile factions, and a fourth neutral faction dedicated to protecting the forest from becoming food, we now have a 4-way conflict at the heart of the dungeon. In fact, I need to construct the dungeon so as to place the fungal forest in the central part of the complex. That way, every faction has access to the forest, and the party must traverse it multiple times to get to different areas of the dungeon.

The myconids will be a perfect faction for the PCs to interact with: If the interaction goes well, the mushroom-folk can provide the party assistance in navigating the dungeon (safe passage; healing mushrooms, etc.); if it goes poorly, the myconids will make the party's passage through their territory an hallucinogenic nightmare every single time until they fix the situation.

I want the weirdness-factor to creep in slowly, rather than blasting the party in the face with it right out of the gate. I envision an "outer" dungeon that has some weird stuff in it that begins informing the PCs that this place is "different." Awareness of the greater conflict in the dungeon, including the existence of the KT and the Leng, will come later.

To help with that, I decided to add a fifth faction, mainly in the outer dungeon. In Jeff's campaign, we  players are members of an adventuring guild of sorts, a company of contracted mercenaries. There are multiple such companies in town, all competing to plunder the various dungeons honeycombing the rift that destroyed the city. On multiple occasions, our party has encountered one of these other guilds basically ambushing and robbing other groups as they exit the dungeons (in one case, we caught them attacking another party within the dungeon itself). They are fairly well armed and experienced, so we've been avoiding them, but they are a constant and very-human threat. 

I decided that this other company has begun plundering the "outer vaults," but so far have not made a ton of progress. Groups of these competing dungeon raiders can be encountered as wandering monsters and give the party a "grounded" foe to fight while I slowly dial up the weirdness. In fact, I'll give these dungeon raiders an armed camp near the entrance, forcing the PCs to figure out how to get past them each time to enter the dungeon. Eventually, the party can kill enough of the raiders to force them to abandon the camp, which will help the PCs probe deeper into the complex.

With these five factions in place, I can begin devising the basic layout of the dungeon. I'm envisioning that this entire complex was once a city inhabited by the Leng, so I choose passages and chambers over a cave-like setting, but with a compromise: the old passages and chambers were broken up by the seismic formation of the rift, with areas that have become irregular and "cave-like." 

I want a big central space for the fungal forest, cavern-like, with side levels dividing the various factional territories from each other and from the outer vaults. After a few rough sketches, I drew the following rough layout for the dungeon...

 

The PCs will enter the Outer Gallery from outside, although the easy way forward is blocked by a floor-to-ceiling collapse.The Outer Gallery is several stories high, with a rail-less balcony 20 ft. up that surrounds the lower floor. From the Outer Gallery are multiple entrances into the east and west Outer Vaults. Each of these dungeon sections will be (2) levels of chambers and passages that also feature multiple exits from both levels into the East and West Galleries which house the Fungal Forest.

In the central area is the heart of the Fungal Forest, as well as a deep Gorge. Across the Gorge, the ceiling and walls of the northern gallery feature large cracks, through which water cascades into the chamber and pools in a Lake that mostly fills the wing. Perched on the shore of this subterranean grotto is a mysterious tower built by the Leng to keep watch on things. 

The Lake drains into the Gorge, as well as into the north-eastern section of dungeon called the Flooded Caves. Again, there are upper and lower levels in this section, with the lower floors being flooded and the upper floor being shattered and more "cave-like." The northwestern section of the dungeon is another two-level series of chambers called the Crystal Caves, which the Leng have largely sealed off from the rest of the dungeon.

Our five factions occupy territory within this layout: The Dungeon Raiders' camp is in the Outer Gallery and they roam the Outer Vaults. The Myconids tend the Fungal Forest and protect it from invasive species. The Gorge leads down to the Troglodyte tunnels, a dungeon sub-level that touches every part of the greater complex, meaning trogs can be found everywhere. The Kuo-toa live in submerged sections of the Flooded Caves, from which they ambush interlopers.

The inscrutable Leng occupy the Crystal Caves. The recent seismic event has caused this group to return to their near-surface holdings and establish a colony. They work to recover their ancient technology and harvest the power crystals that "bloom" throughout these chambers. 

With the factions in place, I divided the rough layout into the following (9) areas (plus a 10th sub-area where the trogs live)...

Each area will require at least (2) maps for the upper and lower floors. Although the trog level will only be one floor, it expands across all areas, so the map will likely require several pieces. This means I'm looking at creating 20 or so maps. As of this writing, I have completed the maps for both floors of the Outer Gallery (Map 1A + B) and the lower floor of the West Outer Vaults (Map 2A), and have begun the map for the upper floor of the West Outer Vaults (Map 2B).

I also have both floors of the Outer Gallery keyed (but not statted out), and am keying the lower floor of the West Outer Vaults. A lot of the dungeon will be procedural, and I am going with a large ratio of "empty" rooms to occupied ones. Figuring out the Leng technology and using it to manipulate the dungeon environment will be a huge part of this adventure (and critical to the PCs' success). 

All five factions are fairly well fleshed-out. (I'd like to hear Sylvester the Cat try to read that sentence.) I think that will be the next info I present on the blog, as the different natures and relationships of the factions are defined by, and help define, the dungeon's design.